French Leave

by Liz Ryan

  ‘I really like you,’ one of them candidly says, ‘but I’d be afraid you might put your career ahead of mine. What I really need is a nice supportive spouse, waiting for me with a kiss and an aperitif in the evenings.’

  Which is fair enough. After all, that’s exactly what I’d love to find myself. Only I would let him express any number of outrageous opinions, and crack all the jokes he liked. God knows he’d need a sense of humour.

  Never mind. If I still haven’t found Monsieur Hulot, I’ve learned a lot from these encounters, and one of them is that in France it’s possible, indeed expected, to enjoy a date without wallowing in alcohol. Another is that Frenchmen are not, contrary to popular opinion, all experts on wine, or obsessed with it, or even very interested in it. While wine is often a terrifying aspect of France for many of those who come to live here, it’s really far more terrifying in other countries – with their wine buffs and clubs and dedicated magazines – than in France itself. Here, you’ll scarcely hear a word about it. Virtually nothing about noses or legs or bouquets or anything else – not unless you actually live in a wine region, at any rate, or ask for information.

  To the French, wine is very simple. ‘Eh oui, that Burgundy tastes good with that nutty cheese.’ Or ‘Dunno why, but that Bordeaux isn’t half bad with this duck.’ Or ‘Eh oui, I like that sweet white with this blue cheese.’

  Yes, of course you can go all techie if you must, get into vines and vintages and whatnot, if you happen upon someone similarly enthusiastic and knowledgeable. But you don’t have to and, on a day-to-day basis, people rarely do. I’ve never seen anyone strut their wine stuff, but I have often seen them ask the sommelier or shopkeeper for advice, without the slightest sign of snobbery on either side. Au contraire. France produces thousands of wines, and the French know that, try as they might (which they don’t), they’ll never be able to keep up with it all. Besides, that’s what your wine merchant is for, non?

  One day, on a trip to the Auvergne, I sought advice on wine to take to a picnic. The shopkeeper thought about it.

  ‘And where,’ she enquired, ‘is this picnic to be?’

  Up there in them thar hills, I replied. Half a dozen of us are getting together for a little lunch …

  ‘How high up in the hills?’

  Er, well, search me. Not all the way up, because we’re only ramblers, not climbers. Let’s say, um, maybe halfway up? Why?

  ‘Because on the lower slopes, this wine’ – flourish of dark rosé – ‘will taste best. On the higher slopes, you’d be better off with this lighter, paler one.’

  Okay, merci beaucoup! I fork over my four euro, and the wine, when we eventually drink it on the lower slopes, tastes like the grapes were personally plucked by the archangel Gabriel. Yet I can’t tell any of my eagerly enquiring pals anything about it, because the shopkeeper didn’t blind me with a word of science. Nothing about robust richness or silky complexity, hints of heather or leather. All she did was match product to picnic.

  In the six years I’ve lived in France (yes, somehow six lovely years have now slipped by), I’ve scarcely ever come across a wine bar, wine club or wine buff. Wine is simply something you enjoy with your meals. What could be easier?

  The longer you live in France, the more enjoyable it becomes, because without ever realising it, you gradually pick up the idea. One day, you buy a wine because it’s on promotion in the supermarket, or because it’s sporting a silver medal, or because somebody told you 2001 was a great year in Bordeaux … and when you taste it, you find yourself saying ‘Ugh! That tastes vile with this ham/melon/fish!’

  So now you know. Bordeaux wine from 2001 must have some merit if it’s got a silver medal, but it doesn’t go with ham, melon or fish. Next time, you’ll try it with steak or liver or something else. Until one day, you pair it with the perfect dish and, hey, it’s heaven! You may not have learned anything further about it but, unconsciously, your palate has absorbed it. You are becoming an amateur, in the true sense.

  During the summer, France’s wine regions are awash with tourists on wine-tasting excursions. What could be more fun than wandering around from one little vineyard to the next, trying a glass here, a glass there? Except for one problem: how to escape without buying a case everywhere you go? If you visit six vineyards, will you have to buy six cases, whether you want to or not? Will the vigneron take offence if you don’t?

  No, of course not. The vignerons in any given area all know each other, and their attitude is that any sale is good for the community, even if today’s doesn’t happen to be mine. Our visitors can’t possibly buy every wine they sample. So let them come and try us all and, somewhere along the line, some of them will buy something. If not from me, then from Jacques up the road … who by chance is married to my daughter/sister/cousin …

  So, no point in fretting about the etiquette of it all, then; no worries about having to discuss the finer scientific details (since the vigneron doesn’t speak English and you don’t speak French). All you have to do is either nod or shake your head – and spit out the samples, naturally, if you are to drive on to the next vineyard, and the next, without losing your licence or embedding your rented Citroën in the aisle of the local church. Many of the growers offer tiny nibbles to help you identify their wine’s destiny: garlic sausage, chunks of local cheese, whatever brings out the best in it. Nobody will be remotely upset if you don’t happen to like garlic sausage, or the wine proposed with it. The only way you can go wrong is by boring them cross-eyed with your knowledge of structures or tannins or vintages – which, frankly, they haven’t time to discuss in detail when they have so many visitors. (Unless, of course, you’re visiting Chateau Margaux or a vineyard of similar level.)

  Like children, young wines express potential but not much complexity. Older wines, like mature adults, are not to be trifled with, and can sometimes be very impressive. And that’s about all there is to the question of vintage, unless you’re actually planning to go into business, like my Irish pals who have so bravely bought Chateau Soussac in Bordeaux. Otherwise, you’re just having lunch somewhere one day, and suddenly you sit bolt upright and say ‘My lord, that Sauternes is delicious with that foie gras!’ – and thereafter, you know to order Sauternes with foie gras. Just as you learn not to order asparagus in winter, or beef casserole in summer … not that they’ll be on the menu anyway, in any French restaurant worth its salt. Out of season, certain dishes – most dishes – just don’t taste right.

  French children scarcely ever learn about wine. They just pick it up as they grow up. In Britain and Ireland, on the other hand, there is an increasing tendency to teach them as they move into their teens. Parents worry about this aspect of their offspring’s social education. They say things like ‘Darling, would you like to try this wonderful Médoc?’ to their mud-encrusted twelve-year-old. Whereupon the mud-encrusted twelve-year-old huddles into the depths of his Xbox and refuses to come out.

  Whereas, if the parents handed the kid a glass of Burgundy and said ‘Do you think this smells like chocolate?’ or ‘What food would you eat with that?’ they’d probably stand more chance of interesting the youngster. Not that many are going to get interested anyway, before the age of sixteen or seventeen at least, because wine is an adult pleasure and younger kids just feel intimidated, or repelled, or wish their stupid parents would leave them alone. What twelve-year-old is going to say ‘Oh, why Mummy, that’s exquisite, that must be the 1997 Morgon. Chateau Prat, is it?’ (Yes, there is actually a Chateau Prat.)

  Still, it can be helpful to start learning early. I know this because, as an eighteen-year-old jeune fille au pair, I was once confronted with a glass of wine and a dozen aristocratic French eyes awaiting my reaction to it. All I could think of was my mother’s parting advice: ‘If you come across any wine in France, remember to dilute it with lots of water.’ So I did.

  Next thing, grandpa is clutching his chest and the whole table’s in uproar. Amidst the gasps of horror, I grasp the awful
information that this wine is a priceless vintage, specially decanted in my honour because it has some kind of Irish connection (the Wild Geese), and I have made a complete spectacle of myself, not to mention disgracing my country (again).

  That was long ago, but given that wine is now a component of any young European’s life, there’s a case to be made for teaching them something about it in school. Or maybe they do, nowadays? At the very least, kids should know (or maybe not!) that wine has got much stronger in recent years, gone up from 9 or 10 percent proof to 13 or even 14 percent, which makes it a substance not to be trifled with. Personally, I wish it would revert to its lesser strength, but somehow doubt that the French oeneology industry is going to pay much attention to me.

  Anyway, even if nobody ever taught you anything, no need to panic. France does not expect you to sniff and swill and sigh with joy: ‘Ah, the St Emilion, I suspect. From the sunny side of the slope. Hints of vanilla. Nineteen sixty-nine, wasn’t it?’ In fact, it doesn’t expect you to do or say anything. Three of my French friends don’t even drink wine at all. Just don’t like it. It’s not compulsory.

  Which, however, is not my own approach. I reckon I’ve personally boosted France’s GNP stratospherically just by moving here and drinking wine. Every spring and autumn, the local supermarkets hold wine fairs – sociable events where you can not only meet the growers, who travel around the country with their produce, but other immigrants too. (You can tell how long the latter have been here by the eagerness with which they permit their plastic cups to be refilled.) And then there are the locals, papa and his pals out looking for something serviceable to drink over the winter with their wives’ chicken chasseur. It almost always is papa, because for some reason, few Frenchwomen take much interest in wine – certainly not on the stocking-up end. Like the seasons, gender roles are much more clearly defined here, and sourcing wine belongs to the boys. Don’t let that put you off, but if you’re a woman you will be treated with every respect and courtesy, not patronised at all. After all, some (foreign) women run very successful vineyards. Plus, if you’re a single woman, the wine fairs are great places to meet nice men …

  And yet, for some completely illogical reason, I always prefer my wine to be opened and poured by a man, whether in a restaurant or at home. If I’m entertaining, I like one of my male guests to take charge of it, and in anyone else’s home, I always assume the host will do so. Why? I can’t explain it. Maybe I’m just hopelessly traditional at heart. Is it any wonder I’ve ended up in the time warp that is France?

  See, lads? Traditional at heart – not nearly so scarily independent as you might think!

  19.

  Allez Les Bleus!

  Pierre Yves, who sells houses, is stamping round the back garden of a thatched cottage, arms outflung, bellowing over the fence at a herd of cows as if they were the assembled Senate.

  ‘France,’ he roars, ‘is finished!’

  Munching ruminatively, Daisy and Claribelle endeavour to digest this along with a mouthful of poppies. Nobody has told them the World Cup is on, much less that France is through to the final.

  ‘Once,’ Pierre Yves continues, ‘France had musicians! Once, she had artists! Scientists! Philosophers! Chefs! She had …’ – fighting for breath, he clasps his chest – ‘she had Escoffier, she had Claude Monet, Erik Satie, Louis Pasteur, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gustave Eiffel … great creators, giants of real talent! And now … now …’ For a terrible moment, it looks as if he might burst into tears. ‘Now, all she has is tribalism! Idiots in stupid hats, painting the tricolour on their faces, bawling at giant screens like savages …’

  He is bawling like a savage himself, red as a cider apple, looking as if he too might be ‘finished’ if he doesn’t calm down. Pierre Yves is one of the 50 percent of Frenchmen who fervently believe that, far from being a glorious trophy, the World Cup symbolises the end of civilisation as they know it. For them, the playing fields of soccer finals are, he yells, a ‘theatre of war’ on which acts of unspeakable hostility and imbecility are currently being enacted. It is the Somme all over again. The hype surrounding the whole thing is honteux (shameful), and to actually win would be not an honour but a disgrace. Fulminating, he shoves his paperwork into his pocket and zooms off in a cloud of rage.

  Why he’s so upset is something of a mystery, since the French team has very little to do with France. As a rule, few of its players are born here, many are employed abroad and, lining up for the pre-match anthem, few can even mime the words of La Marseillaise, much less sing it. On the sidelines of all the qualifying matches, the managers, coaches and assorted minders have had to be festooned in identity tags the size of babies’ bibs, presumably so the spectators will know with which team they are associated.

  In Pierre Yves’s view, ‘You Irish are lucky not to be involved.’ Informed that Ireland has adopted the Ivory Coast as its surrogate team for the 2006 tournament, he all but twirls to the ground like a falling leaf, aghast. ‘But you are crazy!’ Perhaps, but not as crazy as we would have been had we qualified to play in this ‘disgusting folly! This opium of the people! This orgy of nationalism!’

  And nationalist it is, for sure. When I ask my pal Sebastien (who’s one of the other, equally fervent, 50 percent) whether he’d rather see the best team win or see France win, he doesn’t even hesitate. ‘France, of course!’ he splutters, floored by the very concept of the question. For his camp – whose 50 percent seems to be in a minority, if you follow me – victory matters much more than quality. As Thierry Henry will later demonstrate, France will go to any lengths to win.

  But what France has apparently yet to grasp is that watching the match is, in itself, supposed to be a team effort. For tonight’s final, the French are not assembling in bars or congregating around each other’s televisions to share pizza and beer, waving tricolour-draped teddy bears, and the giant screen erected in a Paris stadium for the duration of ‘hostilities’ is drawing far fewer fans than anticipated. As kick-off draws near, there are no reports of anyone being knifed or arrested or any of the other things which, in more clued-in countries, go with soccer finals. The French don’t realise that this match is supposed to be all about mayhem and mob rule. Or maybe all that storming and slashing back in 1789 wore them out?

  However, in our village, the foreign residents are resolved to watch the clash, en masse. A fistful of us drift to the designated venue and, as the team lines up, all the women are agreed: some of these players are real lean machines. Mmm. One of them, whose shirt says Abidal 3, would definitely not be turfed out of the lit for snoring. Whether Abidal 3 is his name, or the destination of some bus in Ghana, is unclear – and one woman further muddies the water by insisting that abidal is the French for ‘tonsil’ – but that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is that we all cheer whenever Abidal gets hold of the ball, thereby inciting himself and his chums on to victory and earning ourselves brownie points as model foreign residents. Team captain Zinedine Zidane, it is agreed, has a delicious smile, and he, too, would most definitely be licensed to snore all he liked. After having scored, naturally.

  But nobody can be expected to concentrate on soccer for much more than five minutes, and so our attention wanders to the particularly crisp rosé we are sharing, to the mist gently mantling the blue meadows of flax outside the open window, to our own tennis match next Friday – which, obviously, will be far more riveting than any World Cup, or indeed Wimbledon (where the ladies’ singles final has just been won by France’s Amélie Mauresmo). ‘Shh,’ hisses one of our more hypnotised comrades, as if our chatter might distract Franck Ribéry from scoring. But the ball goes into the net and, hey, things are looking good for France.

  And they continue to look good, up until the very last minute when, for no obvious reason, Zinedine Zidane suddenly spins round, marches up to his Italian rival Materazzi and head-butts him with all the force of a prize bull. And then, waved off with a red card, marches into the German twilight.

  T
here is a collective gasp. Followed by utterly baffled silence. What on earth has happened? This wonderful player, this national hero, this adored role model, guilty of blatantly foul play in the dying moments of a penalty shoot-out? Even we foreigners are stunned. Unable to answer our mobiles as they start to spew text messages from friends in our various countries – ‘Wow, didja see that!? Way to go!!’ – we can only pluck and grasp at each other.

  Zidane’s outburst is followed, not by the rioting usually so beloved of French youth, but by a deafening explosion of silence. Five minutes later, the match is over, Italy has won, and even the owls are in bed. France pulls its duvet up over its head and endeavours to blot out the entire nightmare. Had the team won, there would have been wild effervescence – somebody in a bar in Paris might have cheered, someone in Marseilles, overcome with emotion, might even have ordered a second pastis – but as things stand the silence is completely, utterly stoic. After all, to run amok might lend credence to Pierre Yves’s view that soccer is for mindless hooligans, and everyone is aware that tonight is not the night for spraying magnums, vomiting into fountains or stabbing each other by way of expressing their enjoyment of the game. Glumly, we disperse and sneak home, taking care not to disturb any snoring grasshoppers. Amélie Mauresmo, we remind ourselves, is the first Frenchwoman to win Wimbledon for decades … comforting ourselves with this, we wonder what might happen next. Amélie notwithstanding, France could well sink into the mire of its national malady, la morosité, maybe even trudge off to have a little existential crisis.